Tatu and Patu’s Amazing Alphabet // Tatun ja Patun Oudot aakkoset

Tatu and Patu's Amazing Alphabet

Otava, 2009

From the Otava Foreign Rights website:

The alphabet is led down memory lane with the boys from Oddsville, where there’s plenty of whacky humour and earth-shaking revelations about the crazy life they’ve lived! With an extra bonus letter: the mark of Oddsville!

Tatu and Patu find a box in the attic brimming with old photos and mementoes of years gone by.

The box is a true cornucopia: there are pictures of their trip to Barbados, a shot of the curling club disco, and one of the Christmas market in Järvenpää. They’ve even made their way into pictures from newspapers and mail-order catalogues. They also find Patu’s messed-up pose from the passport photo booth among the stash.

Included along the way are familiar adventures from the past, like a group photo of the Esikko day care and a series of documentary pictures of what happened when Tatu and Patu went on a picnic with Veera.

At the very bottom of the box is a picture of Oddsville, the place they were born in, but what a shame, the picture is badly worn…

The story of the successful rise to popularity of Aino Havukainen and Sami Toivonen’s picture books reached a peak when their book This is Finland won the Finlandia Junior Prize in 2007.

They have also received the 2001 Rudolf Koivu Prize and the 2006 Kaarina Helakisa Award, and their book Tatu and Patu in Helsinki was nominated for the Finlandia Junior in 2003. Other adventures of the celebrated brothers from Oddsville can be found in Tatu and Patu’s Oddball Bedtime Book, Tatu and Patu Go to Work, Tatu and Patu’s Mad Machines, Tatu and Patu at the Kindergarten, as well as the four Veera books.

Havukainen and Toivonen have also published two collections of their Home Truths comics for grown-ups.

The rights to the Tatu and Patu books have been sold in more than 10 countries, to publishers such as Kaisei-sha (Japan), Édition Glénat (France), Rabén & Sjögren (Sweden) ja Thinemann (Germany).

Finding even two pages in this one that could be translated sensibly was a challenge, for obvious reasons!

The Letter B
The Letters C and D



See also:

Tatu and Patu’s This is Finland (Published)

Tatu and Patu in Helsinki (Forthcoming)

Tatu and Patu’s Adventures in Outer Space (Sample)

Tatu and Patu as Superheroes! (Sample)

Tatu and Patu’s Oddball Bedtime Book (Sample)

 

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